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Photographic frustration

This is a fantastic book, easy to read (lots of pictures! LOL) and I have learned a lot from it. Specifically, I’ve finally learned how to read and use my in-camera light meter. So I can set my camera on full manual, decide if what’s important for my shot is depth of field (aperture) or motion (shutter), set that priority and then fiddle with ISO and the other component until the meter shows the proper exposure. The problem I have always had with this camera when I took it off automatic is a surprisingly long shutter speed and crappy results. Not understanding how to read the meter and not understanding the relationship between the exposure triangle led to a lot of frustration and the beginnings of my quest to learn all these things and get better at this.

But after reading this book, I feel confident that I can shoot on full manual, at least outdoors where I don’t have to worry about using flash (I’m not there yet in my self-education process).

Or can I?

This morning I went out to shoot a picture of my daffodils that were just about to bloom when it snowed. After the snow melted, the daffies look horrible. Bryan Peterson describes what he calls “Who Cares?” aperture settings of f/8 and f/11 when the depth of field is not important to the shot. I figured I didn’t care, so I put the camera on Av mode, set the aperture to f/11, ISO to 100 and let the camera choose the shutter speed:

ISO 100 .3 sec @ f/11

Yuck! The shutter speed was a tad long and because it was hand-held, I have a bit of blur caused by shake. (story of my life)

I won’t bore you with all the pictures I took using different settings, but I assure you each time my meter told me I had the proper exposure.

I still wasn’t getting the sharp shot I was after, so I tried one on automatic. I learned something new about my camera: I can’t get RAW images on automatic, only jpegs:

ISO 100 1/50 sec @ f5.0 (automatic mode)

Now this is the shot I wanted. OK, I hadn’t tried that combination so I put the camera on manual and dialed in the same exposure settings:

ISO 100 1/50 sec @ f/5.0 (manual)

What? What’s my problem? Shouldn’t I have gotten the same great results? All of these shots were done using autofocus. I know that cameras do a little processing when they create jpegs as opposed to RAW images which are pure. Is that the problem? Is the jpeg sharpened in the camera and the RAW image needs to be manually sharpened? I’ve always thought that all digital images (from cameras or scanners) are inherently “soft” and need sharpening in post processing. Even jpegs. Do RAW images need even more sharpening?

Or is it something else?

I’m not ready to give up and go back to full auto yet. I want to understand this.

UPDATE: In hindsight, I should have been more mindful of shutter speed since I knew I would be hand-holding the camera. I’ve heard that 1/30 second is the slowest for acceptable hand-holding and for me, I probably should have gone way higher than that LOL. That doesn’t change the situation above, since the camera used 1/50 second as its shutter speed…